


Sorrow remembers us

by explosiontimothy



Series: Sherlock Holmes and the Lord in Disgrace [5]
Category: Black Sails, Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: But also....somewhat of a happy ending?, Dementia, Grief/Mourning, M/M, Sad Ending, Violent Death, death of old age
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-25
Updated: 2020-12-25
Packaged: 2021-03-10 17:49:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,230
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28301157
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/explosiontimothy/pseuds/explosiontimothy
Summary: They live out the rest of their lives together. It still isn't enough.
Relationships: Captain Flint | James McGraw/John Silver, Captain Flint | James McGraw/Thomas Hamilton, Captain Flint | James McGraw/Thomas Hamilton/John Silver, Miranda Barlow/Mary Morstan, Sherlock Holmes/John Watson
Series: Sherlock Holmes and the Lord in Disgrace [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1984079
Comments: 2
Kudos: 13





	Sorrow remembers us

**Author's Note:**

> this is the end-coda to Sherlock Holmes and the Lord in Disgrace. here's what you need to know if you haven't read the main fic: 
> 
> \- Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson met James and Thomas in London 1895 and then helped James rescue Thomas after he was imprisoned  
> \- Thomas, James and Silver husbands  
> \- Holmes and Watson husbands  
> \- Mary and Miranda wives  
> \- they live in a small made up town in rural France

Sorrow remembers us when day is done.   
It sits in its old chair gently rocking   
and singing tenderly in the evening.   
It welcomes us home again after the day.   
It is so old in its black silken dress,   
its stick beside it carved with legends.   
It tells its stories over and over again.   
After a while we have to stop listening.   
— Iain Crichton Smith

The second the messenger boy arrives at their cottage, sweltering and nearly out of breath, James feels the whole world fall away beneath his feet. It’s not loud, there’s no thud, but he knows deep inside that he is now unmoored, like a piece of old driftwood.

“Monsieur McGraw, sir,” the boy is red in the face and James’ name sounds odd, as it always does, among the lilting sounds of his French tongue. “You are asked to go to Monsieur Madlene’s at once, your cousin Monsieur Argent has had an accident  _ terriblé _ —”

No more needs to be said. James hears Thomas’ gentle inflection behind him, offering the boy a cup of tea and some honey for his trouble, but he can’t make his mind focus on it. He breaks out into a run on the well-trodden path to the carpenter’s, the same path that he sometimes meets Silver on, halfway on his way back from work. James’ head is blissfully blank with the sheer terror of it. All he can think of is  _ Silver, Silver, Silver.  _

Monsieur Madlene meets him with a pinched face and James wants to punch it. 

“Monsieur—”

“Let me see Si— my cousin,” in his panic, James almost forgets the cover they’ve set for themselves. “Monsieur Argent. Please.” 

Monsieur Madlene is smart enough not to stand in his way.

Thankfully, Doctor Watson is—as in all cases when someone is injured or ill in this smallest of small towns—at the scene, already tending to the wound. His head snaps up at James’ entry and he addresses him in English. 

“Oh, thank God, James, help me move him. Come on.” 

For a moment of mute horror, all James can take in is Silver’s pale and sweaty face, the deep, gaping gash in his neck, the heady, iron-clad smell of blood that is still leaking, Lord, there is so much of it, and if there is so much blood around them just how much of would be left in Silver’s body? It makes something inside him beat, red and angry. He feels like he’s about to heave. 

“I—”

“James, please.” And then James is back with a crash, and Silver is trying desperately to take a breath, and the Doctor is pressing a cloth to the spurting wound and yes, they need to move, they need to move right the  _ fuck _ now. 

Slowly, they do get Silver back home. Through a gasping, gurgling throat, he tells James something about tripping over with his crutch, about one of the tools running when it should not have. He tries to explain, and talk, and talk, and talk, and for once, James does not want to hear it, not for a second.

“I don’t care. I don’t care what happened, you idiot. Just stay alive,” James whispers, clutching Silver’s hand as the cart Doctor Watson brought with him rattles underneath them. “Just stay with me.”

Silver smiles. There is blood between his teeth.

For the weeks to come, James is trapped in a nightmare. Silver sweats through all their bedclothes, he shouts when James and Thomas attempt to touch him, and he can barely hold water down. With unending patience, Thomas changes and washes the bedsheets three times a day. James stubbornly feeds Silver broth and more water and the penicillin Watson prescribed, even when Silver physically tries to fight him to prevent it. They cope. 

The wound isn’t getting better, it festers and leaks and smells.  _ Silver _ isn’t getting better, despite the sleepless nights Thomas and James spend at his bedside. James wants to scream and he does—he leaves Thomas reading to Silver and he goes out into their garden. He turns into Flint, then, a beast that howls and cries and scares Walrus the goat and destroys the row of peppers he planted with Silver early last season. When Silver falls into a fitful sleep, James has to face Thomas’ face at the destruction. Thomas says nothing. Instead, he offers himself as a promontory for James’ grief, and James crashes against him, wild and unfurling like the ocean in a hurricane. Thomas takes it all upon himself without a word of complaint, strokes James’ hair, and does not offer comfort with words because he knows there is none to be offered. His heart beats under James’ cheek, frightful like a bird in a cage, and James can  _ hear  _ the fear and the grief and the pain Thomas keeps in himself. They do not talk about it. James wipes his tears and goes back to Silver’s side, because he must do so. He says nothing. 

Watson’s face tells them all they need to know before he has spoken a single word. 

“The wound is septic.” James can barely hear the words from the rushing of blood in his head, is barely aware of the cups of tea Thomas has put in both their hands, before going back to the bedroom. “I thought the penicillin might help but— his fever doesn’t seem to break.” The doctor sighs, long and pained, and then his big, honest eyes meet James’. “I’m so sorry.”

James says nothing. He just gets up and does not leave Silver’s bedside for the next five days. 

He only finds whatever is left of his voice when Silver looks at him, with some semblance of lucidity finally back in his eyes. 

“Flint,” he rasps and it unleashes every single wild thought that James has tried to keep at bay since Silver’s accident. “Captain.  _ James _ , I—”

James crawls into the bed, not caring that the sheets are likely soiled and damp with sweat. He wraps himself around Silver as tight as he can—Lord, all the weight he has lost, James can feel his bones poking against him, can see the gentle fullness of his face now gone—and presses his lips to Silver’s feverish forehead. 

“You can’t die,” he mumbles half into his skin, half into his hair. “There’s so much we need to do. We’re visiting Mary and Miranda next year, remember? I can’t wait to show you where Thomas and I met in London, show you the places we used to go. It’s a shithole, but there’s beauty to be found, there’s places for people like us, Silver, and it’s beautiful. And you said you help Thomas remember his Spanish because we were going to go to Barcelona, to see the sea again. Remember the sea? Remember how we met, on that fishing boat in Savannah? When you jumped off, belly-first, because you thought I was going to kill you for stealing that sailing route the night before?”

“You  _ were _ going to kill me,” Silver rasps, his mouth at James’ neck, his breaths shaky and weak.

“Maybe. Maybe I was, then. Well, I’m not letting you die now. You’re not dying without seeing the sea again. You’re the youngest of us three, Silver. Courtesy says you should wait until Thomas and I die first.”

Silver’s tired huff sounds indignant but he’s not strong enough to answer. James kisses him then, just a press against Silver’s lips, still full and soft as the first day they landed on his. And then he keeps talking. He talks and talks until his voice gives out, but then he talks more even though his throat is unable to make a single sound, and not once does he move, not once does he let Silver out of his embrace. It’s how Thomas finds them in the morning, bathed in the morning sun, with James crying, voiceless, and Silver, cold and unmoving in his arms, with a smile on his face.

They bury him in the back garden, under the orange tree where he and Thomas kissed for the first time. It’s a beautiful summer day and it’s only James, Thomas, Holmes and Watson who attend. James’ voice doesn’t come back for a long, long time, as he stares at the freshly upturned soil without really seeing it. 

* * *

Most days, Holmes doesn’t remember who James is. This is fine. 

Watson’s work calls him away from his home more often than he would like and so, James and Thomas have offered to look after Holmes when they can. They have come to the unspoken agreement that he cannot be left alone—not after the incident where he wandered off only for James to find him two days later, almost starved to death in the forest, claiming that he was looking for Watson to save him from a hound. 

James watches Holmes move about the small cottage. He buries his hands in little bowls full of pebbles and sand. He traces the shapes of the dry honeycomb that has been left on their mantlepiece. He is thinking, James knows, about the world under his hands, and his bare feet are curling on the hardwood floors, and he looks at peace, today. James’ own hand instinctively traces the shape of the little doily on the armchair, he feels every seam under his fingertips. 

Holmes turns to look at James, looking startled: “Oh, apologies for my manners. Can I help you with something, Sir?”

James gives him a gentle smile because the Holmes of before would have never thought to apologise for his manners, to anyone. Age has mellowed them all, made them softer in many places where they used to be hard. “No, it’s rather alright, Mr. Holmes. I’m just here to lend a hand.”

“Ah.” Holmes sits in the chair opposite him and his eyes, still as sharp as they’ve ever been, scan James’ face carefully. “Did Watson and his wife send you here? How many times do I need to tell these people, I am perfectly alright and in no need of a babysitter. I have lived as a bachelor all my life, nothing has changed.”

“Not at all, Mr. Holmes.” James has found that what helps most is not try and correct him. There is only the danger of distressing Holmes if he tries to forcefully bring him back to the present, if he tries to convince him that he’s wrong. So he just lets things be, and sits there quietly, and waits. 

“Hm.” Holmes continues to size him up, touching the breast pocket of his dressing gown, clearly looking for something. “Have you seen my pipe?”

“It has been lost, I think.” Holmes is no longer allowed to smoke. “Perhaps I can help you look for it.”

“No, it is quite alright.” Holmes tilts his head. “What’s your name, good Sir?”

“James. James McGraw.”

“You have lost someone, Mr. McGraw?”

Every time, Holmes asks him this question. Every time it feels like a stab in the gut. Every time, James weathers it simply because he must. 

It is some kind of relief, James thinks, that even after all this time, the grief is still written on his face in a way that Holmes can see it. It makes him feel a bit closer to the detective, it is almost like the moment of recognition that he hopes for every time they meet. 

“I have.”

Holmes steeples his fingers under his chin. “Is this why you came to seek my assistance?”

“Yes, Mr. Holmes. That’s precisely it.”

“Then dawdle not, Mr. McGraw. Tell me precisely what has happened.”

So James tells him. Every time, it is a different story. Some days, Silver was poisoned by a scorned lover who could not stand for their affair. Sometimes, Silver was set upon ten men in the darkness of the forest, only left behind with a bloody message and a suspicious weapon. Sometimes, Silver was found in a locked room, shot, but with no gun in sight. Every day, he invents and reinvents Silver’s death, in a new mystery for Holmes. He thinks, blithely and with a pang of pain deep in his chest, that Silver would probably enjoy this.

It works. Holmes is always enthralled and always jumps into deductions, conclusions, asking James probing questions. Several times, James thinks, Holmes probably suspected him to be the murderer. The stories always change but, every time, James tells him Silver was his lover. He doesn’t change that bit. Whenever he mentions it, some particular pain appears in Holmes’ eyes, an odd sort of yearning that he cannot hide. A mind that aches for love, in the body that receives that love, has received it for years: James cannot begin to imagine the pain it must cause Watson.

Late at night, after days like these, Thomas holds him tight in their bed. They curl around each other now, every evening. That way, they don’t have to think about the person-shaped void between them.

“What was it today?”

“A shark attack,” James mumbles into the collar of Thomas’ shirt. “It was all I could come up with.”

Thomas kisses his head. He doesn’t ask more and James, in turn, never asks Thomas of the conversations he has with Holmes. They just lie together, breathing in the space filled by their grief.

The next morning they walk to Holmes and Watson’s cottage to bring them tomatoes and goat’s milk, like they always do. They find Watson sitting on the steps leading up to the door. His face is pale and he is wringing his hands in a way that looks painful.

“John?” Thomas asks gently, reaching to put a hand on his shoulder.

Tears overflow from Watson’s eyes at the sound of Thomas’ voice and he looks ahead as if he can’t see them standing there. James recognises this particular kind of grief-fuelled blindness. He looks at the cottage, quiet and still. Something cold seeps from it.

“I never thought—” Watson chokes out. “I never thought he would go like this. In his sleep. Quiet. Peaceful. I—” 

Nothing more comes out as he breaks down sobbing, short, heaving breaths leaving his lungs with tremendous effort. Thomas sits down next to him and pulls him into an embrace into which Watson crashes without a second thought. James sits on the other side of him and puts a hand on his knee because he does not know what else he can do. 

They stay there for a long time, neither of them willing to take a step inside. 

* * *

_ Dearest Thomas _ , the letter begins and everything about it is wrong. Mary never writes to just Thomas alone. It was always “Dear James, Thomas and Silver,” and then “Dear James and Thomas,” or “My dearest friends,” or “To my favourite boys,” if Miranda is the one in charge of writing. But the letters from London are never just addressed to Thomas alone. James watches Thomas read it, his eyes moving quickly along the lines as he holds the piece of paper close to his face. He needs to wear his glasses, James thinks, and tells himself to remind him again. Thomas has complained they make his ears look big—an insecurity so unnecessary in a man so endlessly wonderful. 

_ Dearest Thomas,  _ the letter says and after some time Thomas leaves it on their kitchen table and he walks out, not looking at James once. He heads towards the forest and he keeps walking until he disappears from sight. James doesn’t stop or follow him.

_ Dearest Thomas,  _ the letter says. James is in half a mind to burn it. That’s what he does, right? He’s Mr. Flint, he starts fires. He doesn’t because he does not think that Thomas would forgive him if he did. This letter and its horrible, blood-soaked news is a thread; maybe the last one they now have, connecting them to a distant past that is warm and smells of lavender. A thread he is not going to break. He clearly remembers getting a letter much like this, years ago, in America. He remembers screaming and breaking things and leaving Miranda in floods of tears, in Mary’s arms, as he had exploded in his grief, heedless of hers. God, she deserved so much better. She deserved so much better than him, at the time. 

_ Dearest Thomas,  _ the letter says, for despite everything, Thomas was the one who knew Miranda best of them all. He had spent more of his life married to her than he had alone—because just how Watson was still married to Mary, Thomas and Miranda’s marriage had never been officially dissolved. They used to make fun of it, in those endless summer afternoons when Miranda would lay with her head in Thomas’ lap and mock him for being whipped by three spouses at the same time. Silver would counter that, if you count Madi into the picture, that’s  _ four _ spouses, even if Madi is a spouse-in-law and they would start arguing about technicalities. Holmes would call Silver an idiot and launch into an explanation of matrimonial rites and dissolutions of marriage. Watson and James and Mary would just look on, desperately, painfully fond. As she observed the chaos of her creation, Miranda’s mischievous smile had been bright enough to light up the world, then. 

_ Dearest Thomas,  _ the letter says and James doesn’t scream or howl, not this time. He knows better now. Instead, he puts the letter back precisely where Thomas left it and goes out in the garden. He walks until he reaches the dahlias. They always were Miranda’s favourites. She came to pick bunches of them, and James growled in fake aggravation, but never actually minded. Miranda then brought them to Mary, who would arrange them beautifully for her paintings. 

_ Dearest Thomas,  _ the letter says. James brings in a bouquet of dahlias, puts them in a vase and quietly sets it on their side table, under one of Mary’s paintings. It’s of Miranda. She’s wearing a sheer nightgown that looks like it is weaved entirely out of stars, reading on a window seat, with the sunlight tangled in her dark hair. She looks so real, James imagines almost putting his hand on her shoulder. 

_ Dearest Thomas.  _ Thomas comes back in the evening, sees the flowers under the painting and crumples on his knees like a rag doll. James quietly kneels next to him and they hold each other, as Thomas cries and prays in front of this makeshift altar, for a woman they both loved deeply and truly yet not even close to the way that she deserved to be loved.

* * *

James isn’t there when it happens the first time. He never is, he thinks in a particularly uncharitable moment. He wasn’t there when Thomas was first taken, too. Every time he looks away from Thomas, even for a minute, something horrible seems to happen. He’d only just gotten used to the idea of letting Thomas out of his sight—and here it is happening yet again.

Thomas is with Mary, at the time. They have been spending a lot of time together since she decided to return to Marilès and live with Watson. Maybe because they can talk about art—out of the three of them, Thomas is really the only one who can hold a conversation about it with any confidence. Or maybe, because they can talk about their memories of Miranda. James doesn’t know and he doesn’t intrude on these private conversations.

When he comes home from his walk, Thomas is sitting at the kitchen table with a bruise on his brow and Mary is gently applying some ice on it.

“What?” James is violently transported back to a moment in London, when Thomas had been attacked by a random street brute. “What happened? Thomas?”

Thomas looks up and smiles, the way he has always done when he sees James. “Ah, it’s nothing. I felt faint and hit my head. Have not had enough water today, maybe. Do you mind putting the kettle on, dear? I do fancy a cup of tea.”

Mary’s concerned frown leads James to believe this isn’t even a quarter of the truth. “Would you like me to fetch John?”

“No need to bother him over a dizzy spell. I am fine. Thank you, Mary.” 

“It wasn’t just falling faint,” Mary tells James what he already knows as he walks her out. “He was— He just collapsed, James. He was fine one moment, and then he just—”

She is so shaken that James hugs her and tells her it’s not her fault because it really isn’t. A cold, dark dread settles in his chest and he watches Thomas closely.

The next thing to alarm him is the sleeping. 

Thomas has always been a man to soundly sleep very long hours. Silver used to joke that an artillery could go off next to him and he would sleep through it while the world ends. When he was done joking, he then always loved to wake Thomas up with his mouth or his hands, sly and beautiful. Mornings like that, James was just content to watch the sweet tenderness of Thomas woken from sleep carry on his face during sex. 

So when sleep begins to evade Thomas, James notices. At first, he contributes it to stress, but then it happens again the next evening. And then the evening after. Thomas stays up long hours, writing and writing by low candlelight, words that he would not let anyone read. When he does come into bed, he curls into James’ back like the question mark of what James is too scared to ask.

“What’s wrong?” James asks, quietly.

“I have a headache,” is all Thomas says, and his voice sounds pained. “Just. Let me rest, please.” So James does.

The headaches don’t go away during the day and James can always tell because Thomas squints at the daylight as if he cannot bear to look at it. Some days, they are so severe they cause him intense stomach upsets. James hasn’t asked about Thomas’ time at the  _ private institution  _ his father stashed him away at for three years, but he can gauge some things by the way Thomas shivers after he throws up, curling into himself, trying to make himself smaller and smaller. When this happens, Thomas does not like to be touched and James’ hands feel heavy with the comfort he cannot give.

Twice more he collapses, although both times he is sitting down so he just sort of  _ sways  _ to one side, not losing consciousness yet increasingly disoriented afterwards for a concerning amount of time. The third time it happens, James firmly does not listen to Thomas’ protests and calls for Watson. 

Watson flashes a light in Thomas’ eyes, takes a deep breath and asks: “For how long have you been unable to see out of your right eye, Thomas?”

Something drops in James’ stomach, heavy like lead. Thomas, defiant, does not look his way. 

“A week. Maybe more.” 

After Watson leaves, they are quiet for a long time. 

“I did not tell you because there is nothing you could have done,” Thomas finally speaks. “I know how much you always wish to fix things, my love, but this cannot be fixed and I could not bear watching you torture yourself with it.”

James is furious with this impossible man who he loves more than life itself. He takes Thomas’ hands in his. 

“You are the heart of me,” Thomas continues. He brings James’ hands to his chest. “And I will not have you stop living after I am gone. I will not have you give up on this life, James.”

“I already lost you once,” James rasps, and damn his voice for giving out on him. “I cannot bear to do it again.”

Thomas’ hand comes to the back of his head and he brings their foreheads together, a familiar gesture of comfort that now tears at James’ heart. “You will bear it, my love. You have always been the bravest of us.”

“It’s not fair,” James breathes, aware of how stupid and childish it sounds. “It’s not fair that I’m going to have to bury you both. It’s not fair that I am the one to keep living, when all I have ever wanted was to close my eyes the minute both you and Silver closed yours and never open them again.”

“I know it’s not,” Thomas kisses James’ tears away and James did not even know he was weeping. “I know, James. I know.”

James takes two long breaths—inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale—then tells himself to get a fucking grip.

And he does. He nurses Thomas, who deteriorates rapidly after this night. As much as his illness looks painful, Thomas does not complain of the pain once, and James tries not to as well, tries to savour the precious few moments they have left together. It helps bring them both peace, to an extent. On what they both know is his last day, Thomas asks to be taken out into the garden. They sit next to Silver’s grave, and talk to him, as they normally do. James strokes the blonde wispy hair, now streaked with traces of white. His finger follows the shape of the delicate shell of Thomas’ ear. After some time, Thomas stops talking. He then falls asleep, for the very last time, with his head on James’ lap. 

* * *

_ How much more grief can one person take?  _ James wonders blithely.  _ How many more tears can I cry until I’m all dried up? _

He does not know what he has done to cause this. He does not know why he is the one to survive, when, by all odds, with all the abuse he has put his body through, it should have given out long, long ago. Yet, here he is. At another funeral, with more time to mourn afterwards. It’s raining and the lavender bushes sway gently with the wind. James thinks that the raindrops are making the world seem full of brushstrokes.

James had found her in her cottage, sat in front of her easel, as she so often was. She’d moved back there, saying she did not want to see it crumble, did not want the life she had with Miranda there to be overtaken by the mould and the earth. And she fought it. By some stupid twist of fate, that particular cottage was the one out of the three that had always suffered with structural issues. Silver had sanded the floors and the door frames when they had first moved in. James had fixed the roof several times. Thomas had helped Miranda with the weeds in the garden. And yet, it all kept coming back, as if the ground the cottage was on did not want it there and it was rejecting it like bad blood. 

She fought it. She was not a woman to back down easily from a challenge, so she fought it. She scrubbed the mould and dusted and tore out and replaced the rotten floorboards with a ferocity James knew she was capable of yet did not realise all the loss they had collectively suffered would bring it out in her. Her hands would bleed and smell of Miranda’s soaps. Every time James offered to help, she smiled and refused.

She did not paint again for a long time, and when she at last did, she never finished it. 

James watches Mary’s coffin go into the ground. There are many people at the funeral; Mary was well liked in Marilès, just as she was everywhere else. Her paintings graced the corridors of the town hall, the small inn, many of the homes everywhere around them. Little pieces of her, James thinks. She has torn herself up in parts, given something of herself to everyone until she had nothing more to give.

James knows now why Miranda loved her, for Miranda was a collector. She collected all parts of Mary together, and she loved them together and apart just so. Without Miranda, Mary scattered to the wind like a dandelion.

Doctor Watson stands at the grave long after everyone is gone. James goes to stand next to him.

“It will have been quick,” Watson says. “Brain bleeds usually are. She wouldn’t have even felt it.”

James says nothing.

“She was the first to know. About me. About my persuasions. About how I felt for Holmes. The moment I saw her, I knew I could trust her with my life. She held me together when I fell apart, so many times. When I felt like I would be trapped in this— this painful existence of wanting but never getting, she was there.” He exhales noisily. “And when she found Miranda, I was happy for her— I was so happy for her, yet I was blind and jealous and stupid also, I was so endlessly sour that I was not to have that same happiness and I think she knew. I never asked for her forgiveness. I never— I relied on her so heavily, so intensely, and I never even asked her to forgive me.”

“She would have forgiven you,” James says and knows it to be true. “She would have questioned why you have decided to ask her forgiveness in the first place.”

Watson says nothing. They just stand there, as the rain soaks their coats and makes James’ hair stick to his scalp.

* * *

Autumn comes and Watson comes down with a fever they both know will be his last. 

James starts sleeping on the sofa in Watson’s cottage. It’s a killer for his back; his joints no longer work the way they used to, they swell and ache now, especially in the colder months. Watson tells him to stop being stupid, that they are both frail old men, that they can share a bed and be adults about it. James still sleeps on the sofa. He does so in his own house, too. Unlike the big, empty bed, the sofa is small and it lets him curl up. He likes it. 

Watson’s coughs shake the foundations of the cottage itself. The people of Marilès line up at the door, leaving food, presents, well-wishes. They praise James for being a good neighbour and looking after the doctor with an odd gleam in their eyes. James wants to hysterically laugh that, after years of their sodomy-filled living situations, the townsfolk have decided to grab the entirely wrong end of the stick  _ now _ .

Let them. Let them build an entire wrong end of a forest as far as he is concerned. James knows that they will both not be long for this world. Small town gossip is, really, the last of his concerns.

One evening, as he brings Watson his evening tea, the doctor catches his wrist.

“James.” He pauses to cough in his handkerchief and it comes out bloody, as it has been this past week. “There’s something you need to know.” 

James sits on the edge of the bed and grasps Watson’s hand in his.

“I’m here.”

“I have a box.” Every word is leaving Watson’s mouth with extreme effort. “A safety deposit box. It is buried in the garden, under the big oak tree. The key—” Watson pulls out a leather strap hidden under his collar. With a flash of pain, James recognises the necklace at the end of it, nestled neatly against the key. It used to belong to Silver. Watson gives a sad smile. “He really was the best thief I have ever met.”

James blinks, once, twice. “The box. What would you like me to do with what’s in it?”

Watson leans back against his pillows, deep in thought. “You know what, I have no idea. I suppose I will have to leave that decision in your capable hands.” He meets James’ eye. “It is my journal that I have kept since 1894 with all my notes regarding the Hamilton affair. There is also a small cache of documents. Newspaper articles. Letters I have collected, bits and pieces—it is our story.”

James studies Watson carefully. “Why?”

“Do you remember—” Another pause, another cough that feels like it rattles the very foundations of the cottage. “Do you remember the salon, at Palace Street, where we first met?”

Despite everything, James smiles. “I remember.”

“Lord, how uptight you were that evening! I thought you a lion, ready to bite my head off were I to even look at Thomas in a way you thought inappropriate.”

“I very much was, at the time.”

“When Thomas was talking of John Ruskin’s book, of the practice of writing autobiographies in general, he said something that stayed with me. Has stayed with me since.” Watson takes a deep breath. “He said that biographers do what they do to avoid being written out of the narrative. That the villains of the world are often those who tell its stories, and that it is important that more common people,  _ people of the world _ , do autobiographical writing. For the future of the world, and for history to know the astounding variety that lived so boldly in us all.”

James huffs. “Bold of Thomas to say that about John Ruskin, of all people.”

“Quite.” Watson laughs, too. “But I don’t think he was talking about Ruskin in that particular moment, do you?”

They fall silent, ruminating on words long since spoken and forgotten. 

“So is this what you want me to do?” James finally asks. “Tell our story?”

“I don’t  _ want _ you to do anything.” Watson relaxes back into his pillows and closes his eyes. “This isn’t a dying man’s wish or anything of the sort. I am simply telling you this because it is the last thing I have left to give, and I can think of no one else I would rather have it. You can leave it in the ground to rot, for all I care.” He cracks open one eye. “Lord knows that’s what Holmes would have done. He never much cared for fanciful retellings of his adventures.”

“I very much doubt that.”

“Oh, he did not. He told me this many times, especially after we began living together here. He felt that he could now be honest as he had before been, and I quote, ‘sparing my feelings.’”

This chokes a laugh out of James, and Watson tumbles into it as well with a cough that shakes his whole body. For one shining moment, the sound of their glee is all that fills the room and it feels as if it is all back to normal, as it should be. Then, their laughter dies, and all that is left is the flickering of the candle at Watson’s bedside.

“I will do it,” James says finally, though he is unsure what it is exactly that he is promising. “I do not know how, but I will.”

Watson’s eyes shine in the dim light. “All of this—” he waves a hand around indeterminably. “All that we have done. It has to mean something, right? To someone, somewhere. In the future. We can’t have been for nothing, right?”

James catches the man’s hand, squeezes hard, so hard his knuckles hurt.

“No,” he says firmly. “I will not let it happen. I will not.”

Seemingly comforted, Watson leans back into his pillows. “Stay with me tonight? I’d like to tell you the story of how Holmes and I first met.”

James knows the story. He has read the story. Watson has told him the story, several times. Still—he agrees. He lies on top of the covers and listens as Watson’s voice quietly fades into silence.

* * *

On 1st October 1920, the day after John Watson’s funeral, James McGraw sends the deposit box to a random address in Scotland, with an instruction for it to be delivered in 100 years. 

It’s an impulsive decision that he makes on the spot. While James is good with his words, he is no writer or publisher. He has no fight left in him to figure it all out—but maybe someone, in a century’s time, will. It is a cowardly move but he does not regret it. He goes back to his cottage with a sense of completion.

Theirs will be a story that survives. James has decided this. History will know about the sacrifices that were necessary, the mistakes that were inevitable, the love that guided their way here. Theirs will be a story that will not live in the margins. 

Yet, there will be things that will remain out of it. Things hidden, deep within his heart. Things that are only for him to keep.

James goes out into the garden. He feels tired, so very tired, and he thinks, finally, that he can rest. The trees are awash with yellow and orange, the same colour as his hair still, even in old age.

He lies down on the ground between the graves of the two men he loves more than any history will ever tell. He feels the warmth of the soil underneath him, listens to the rustle of the leaves and the whisper of the wind. He closes his eyes and the rush of air blankets him like a dual embrace. Then, he falls asleep. 

**Author's Note:**

> happy holidays to all readers of Sherlock Holmes and the Lord in Disgrace. thanks as ever to Phoenix who edited this <3
> 
> find us on the social medias:
> 
> tim: blahaj_haver (twitter); blahajhaver (tumblr)  
> phoenix: thegearsystem (twitter); beholdingransom (main tumblr); dandyholmes (holmes tumblr)


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